Ways to Make Your Story Sing

So, as I've been revising this secret little story, I've been paying BIG attention to voice. As in, staying in it, making it good/real/rich, making it o-o-z-e personality. Tone. Mood.

I was watching a thriller the other day, and just before something bad happened, the music got all tinkly. And when the tension rose, the music got louder, fast.

How can we use music in our writing? How can we strengthen voice?

Well, I'm finding that little tricks can make an enormous difference.

Like. Punctuation! (Including parentheses. And ellipses...)

And sentence fluency.

And paragraph structure.

And it's so all about word choice.

All of these things--and showing, not telling, and using specific nouns and strong verbs--add to a story's personality/tone/mood.

Dashes. Drawls. Slang?

POOF! How about some onomatopoeia?

Or italics? Fragments? Pacing!

It's all up to you: the feel you want to create, the music you want to play.


(And by all means, help a sister out. If you have any good tips, please. Leave them right here.)

The Hardest Part?

I've been thinking a lot about voice lately. How to do it. How it varies, specifically. What makes each one special.

In one of my manuscripts, narrated by 16 year-old MC Kat, the voice is hollow. Sad. Kat's been bounced around from foster home to foster home and lands in The Middle of Nowhere, Oregon. Kat is sensitive, but strong. Young but growing wiser. Completely trustworthy. You could tell her anything and listen to her favorite band with her for hours.

In my other manuscript, Josh, a 17 year-old basketball blue chip from Sacramento, narrates the seedy side of sports. Josh is wise beyond his years, but is jaded and unreliable. It's not his fault, right? Because everyone has made him who he is. Because he has to survive his life somehow.

Two very different tales.

Two distinct voices.

Okay, I'm not a master of voice craft, for sure, but here's what I've come up with that might help you strengthen your MC's voice:

* Know your MC! I mean, really know them: their wants, hopes, and fears; when they're from and where they're going; their favorite shirt; what they drink and how they drink it; 20 adjectives that might describe them.

* Know the other characters. So the reader has no trouble understanding/believing why MC does and says the things she does.

* Know your audience: ages, interests, gender.

* Know how you want your story to "sound."

* Know setting. Does the MC stand out or fit in nicely? It's all part of the story.

* Stay in character with dialogue. Think word choice, sentence fluency, length, and structure.

* Think paragraph length and structure.

* Use flashbacks. What was significant in MC's past that relates to his/her story?

* Make the most of tone, cadence, punctuation. Match it all up with plot. Use other stylistic devices, too: rhythm, repetition, humor...

What else?

How do you define and use voice?

Fluid Fluency

Since Sentence Fluency is one of six traits in the Oregon Writing Benchmarks, I've thought some about mixing up sentence beginnings.

Especially in narratives, it's easy to start with "I" "I" "I."

But what are other, more interesting/sophisticated beginnings?

Okay, there are adverbs: Slowly, the ketchup oozed across the floor. But adverbs can always be replaced by a strong verb, and are distracting and often redundant.

Prepositional phrases are definitely interesting/sophisticated: After the ketchup oozed across the floor, I had to jump over the puddle. They also lend themselves to varying length. Delicious.

Participial phrases and gerunds are also yummy: Coming downstairs for dinner, I smelled spaghetti.

But.

Participial phrases also lend themselves to funny dangling/displaced modifiers: Coming downstairs for dinner, the spaghetti smelled of garlic and basil. Since participial phrases always modify the noun closest to it, in this case, the spaghetti is coming down the stairs. Quick fix: Coming downstairs for dinner, I could smell the garlic and basil of the spaghetti.

It's important to stay true to voice when mixing up sentence fluency. But it's fun playing around and trying something new.

How about you? What are your tricks for sentence beginnings?